Ask any western gamer who Marth is and they will quickly reply something along the lines of "That cool sword-wielding guy from Super Smash Bros." - something that is understandable since the Fire Emblem series that began all the way back to 1990 on the Famicom only reached the West in 2003. But behind his...

Sega is still a key player in today's video game industry, but its position has diminished considerably over the past few decades. 25 years ago, it was one of the undisputed giants not only of the gaming arena, but of mainstream popular culture, having successfully taken on Nintendo with its popular Mega...

Demon's Crest is one of the true underrated gems of the SNES library, yet it sold terribly upon its initial release back in 1994. In issue 100 of Nintendo Power it was even reported that the game had registered negative sales one week, as more people returned it for a refund than bought it. Thankfully, Capcom...

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was definitely something of a gamble for Nintendo when it launched back in the days of the SNES. The Super Mario series was only four (technically five) games long, and instead of making a safe sequel to the popular Super Mario World, a game was made starring his dinosaur companion, Yoshi...

Dragon Ball Z fever was very much a real thing in the '90s, but this blonde hair, Kamehameha-throwing insanity hit the UK and America much later than the rest of Europe. As such, it might still not be common knowledge that all four of Super Famicom's Dragon Ball Z one-on-one fighting games received PAL localization and distribution -...

Minor league baseball team Frisco Roughriders has something of a habit of getting its players to wear unique shirts based on pop culture icons, and this year the team is harnessing the power of Gunpei Yokoi's finest creation, the Nintendo Game Boy.
The Roughriders - who play at the amusingly-named Dr Pepper Ballpark -...

If you were a kid growing up at the end of the '80s and into the late '90s, you very well may have known that home console gaming was in its prime glory in the Bush Senior and Clinton era. The new and as-of-yet unexplored frontiers of companies like Nintendo and Sega were fertile planting ground for now-classic and beloved...

Next time you're bored at work you might want to try out this pretty incredible piece of programming which runs NES games via your browser in - wait for it - 3D.
3DNES only runs in Firefox and isn't operating at full speed at present, but as a technical feat it's pretty impressive. It takes original NES games and presents them...

Coleco has announced that it is walking away from the Chameleon console project after reports surfaced that the prototype shown off at the recent New York Toy Fair had a SNES Jr. inside it.
The Chameleon was supposed to usher in a new era of cartridge-based gaming, and was billed as being able to emul

Mega Man was the game that started it all, catapulting the Blue Bomber to fame and kicking off what would be a long and rich line of action games. Though the Mega Man games have all but screeched to a halt in more recent times, Capcom did decide to throw fans a bone and put out the Mega Man Legacy...

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening might seem like the pint-sized sibling of the sublime Link to the Past, but many regard it as the superior release, despite the cruder visuals and sound. The 1993 Game Boy release was one of the first titles for the handheld which showed it could...

Boss Game Studios off-loaded sequel duties to their dumb-fun hit Top Gear Rally in order to commence work on what would be an altogether more serious, authentic project – 1999's World Driver Championship. It would be the last significant output from the assured Redmond-based team, but remains amongst only a handful of truly...

This June marks an important occasion in Nintendo history: the 20th anniversary of Nintendo's first 3D home video game system, the Nintendo 64, which released in Japan on 23 June 1996.
To mark this momentous occasion, a group of artists has released a free unofficial synthwave compilation of...

When these games were released back in the late nineties, the air around younger Game Boy owners was one of excitement and rivalry. Nintendo is clearly trying to capitalise on the nostalgia factor for all of us who were within the target age group (and some who weren't) when these titles were originally released,...

Conker's Bad Fur Day is undoubtedly a cult classic on Nintendo 64, as Rare evidently decided all bets were off and turned a previously 'cute' project into a rather mature outing on the system.
That history and transformation into one of the few mature Nintendo-published games - though there have been a handful over the years -...

Game Boy modder and chiptune master Joe Heaton is here to give us an official on-the-floor report from an amazing musical event - enjoy!
On February 12th 2016, Niche Nights hosted the first ever ChipBattles event at Fab Cafe in Manchester. This is a brand new event within the scene of "Chiptune" music,...

It's a fairly little known fact that Nintendo was, at one point, working with Sony to develop a console. Back when CDs were all the rage, Nintendo was in the market to develop a CD add on with Sony, which was not affiliated with games at the time. It wasn't to be, unfortunately, and there was a falling out between the two...

War never changes. Unless someone replaces tanks with giant walking robots, then it looks much, much cooler yet is still quite tragic. That is exactly the point of Squaresoft's 1995 mech tactical RPG Front Mission. How does a man survive on the battlefield of the future? Canny strategy, pots of money and making...

We've posted a fair share of fan-made projects taking our favourite video games and characters and giving them a HD graphical overhaul, from the Ocarina of Time's Master Sword cutscene to Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle frolicking in an open field. These have come from a range of creators, and while sometimes their...

Pilotwings is a series that, after capturing hearts on Super NES, has failed to establish itself fully as a franchise. There was Pilotwings 64, and then after a long wait there was Pilotwings Resort, a 3DS launch title that took placed in and around Wuhu Island from Wii S

While renowned for popularising the incorporation of analogue joysticks into modern video game controllers, the Nintendo 64 Controller's joystick is, in fact, its biggest flaw. Those who played their N64 extensively back in its heyday will remember that the stick would become loose after extended use, so much so that it...

The three first generation Pokémon games are nearlyavailable on the 3DS Virtual Console, and to celebrate just a wee bit we though it might be fun to see if there are any subtle performance or graphical variations between this version and the original cartridges.
Using Pokémon Blue as a benchmark for no reason other...

This year marks the 30th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, and online retailer Merchoid has announced that it is offering some officially licensed hoodies that are fit for the Hero of Time.
These hoodies are available for both men and women and are designed to replicate Link's outfit - they even feature a...

Streets of Rage II was an influential beat 'em up from the glory days of the SEGA Genesis, featuring brutal hand to hand combat and some seriously good quality spritework. Relatively recently, it received the 3D Classics treatment from M2 and saw a re-release on the Nintendo 3DS; gloriously reproduced in autostereoscopic 3D...

The Nintendo Game Boy is without a doubt one of the most iconic gaming systems of all time, having shifted millions of units and turned countless individuals into Tetris addicts and prolific portable players.
However, the console itself was actually seen as something of a weakling, even by the standards of the late...

The Nintendo Satellaview was a visionary achievement - attaching a satellite modem to your Super Famicom and having scheduled game downloads was certainly something out of science fiction back in 1995. It achieved a moderate amount of success in Japan and has gathered a cult following among diehard Super Famicom...

When you think HAL Laboratories, you immediately think Kirby. This is natural since it is by a long shot the most recognizable character ever to come out of the Chiyoda-based software house. Yet with over three decades producing video games, it goes without saying that HAL has a diverse back catalogue going all the way back to...

Michael Cimino's seminal 1978 drama The Deer Hunter may feature mesmerising performances from the likes of Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and the late (and criminally underrated) John Cazale, but perhaps its most famous contribution to modern cinema is that scene where De Niro, Walken and John Savage's...

In the world of music vinyl is currently enjoying something of a resurgence, with the antiquated audio format coming back from the dead to take pride of place in any self-respecting hipster's living room. While it's unlikely that this trend has anything to do with the release of RIKI's 8Bit Music Power, parallels can nevertheless be...

Close friend and occasional Nintendo Life contributor Tyler Esposito is at it again - he's followed up on the Christmas video which saw him tearing off the wrapping to his shiny new NES back in 1989 with a birthday clip which shows just how popular Tim Burton's Batman movie wa

Virtual Reality may be back in favour these days, but back in the mid-'90s the initial burst of interest in the technology was starting to wane, and for many players the straw that broke the camel's back was the much-hyped Nintendo Virtual Boy.
Released in 1995 to almost complete consumer apathy, the console lacked...

Plok is without a doubt one of the true hidden gems of the SNES library. Created by British coding siblings Ste and John Pickford, Plok originally starred in a unique platforming epic for the 16-bit console but has since gone on to become the lead character in a series of web-based comics, drawn by...

As we all know, Super Mario Kart on the SNES allows 8 famous faces from the Mushroom Kingdom to challenge one another in a no-holds-barred race to the finish line. Subsequent entries in the franchise have added more driver choice to the roster, but YouTube user Hat-Loving Gamer clearly feels Nintendo hasn't gone anywhere near...

Tribute albums play a notable part in the enthusiast gaming scene as talented musicians get together to celebrate their favourite games. Often not-for-profit ventures, they help breath new life into classics while tapping into lovely, fuzzy nostalgia.
Chronicles of Time seems to tick all of those boxes - it's a 75-track...

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made quite an impact in the West, with the forty-nine episode anime series getting aired by Cartoon Network which would ensure it became one of the most recognizable entries in the iconic Japanese science fiction mecha series in our part of the planet. Predictably, video game adaptations...

Yesterday, we reported on the news that the limited edition version of SEGA 3D Classics Collection would come with a sheet of decals comprised of logos and other old-school Sega imagery. One of these stickers stood out from the rest as it featured a character who is practically unknown to modern Sega fans:...

Gauntlet remains a dear memory among many retro gamers. After all, Atari's revolutionary dungeon crawler was one of the best co-op arcade games ever produced and it certainly was no stranger to Nintendo owners with several conversions making their way to NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and GameCube. You will notice a strange...

Well-known Pokémon fan project Pokémon Reorchestrated - a channel dedicated to orchestral covers of music across the Pokémon games - has had its full Kanto Symphony playlist removed from YouTube by The Pokémon Company. Channel creator Braxton Burks covers this in detail via the video below, but the key notes to take away...

February 27th is a big day for Pokémon, marking the series' 20th anniversary since its début games in 1996. However, information contained within those games mentions another special day too - February 6th is Mewtwo's birthday!
Players of Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow/FireRed/LeafGreen will...

With the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD just around the corner we thought it was about time we looked back at the fantastic reveal that the original game received.
Much controversy surrounded the art direction of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and many people wanted a more realistic Zelda game...

Pokémon turns 20 this year, and to mark the occassion Game Freak's Junichi Masuda has posted a video online in which he shares some of his strongest memories regarding the creation of this iconic series.
Masuda - who served as a programmer on Pokémon Red and Green and created the music and...

We've seen some hugely impressive speedruns and game clearance feats in recent times, whether it's beating games with unconventional controllers, clearing multiple games at once or setting record times. Blindfolded runs are also fantastic to watch, and Japanese YouTuber...

There are hundreds of amazing games for the Super Famicom that remain a mystery to Western gamers. Dark Half is one such game, published by Enix in 1996. It is a late generation Super Famicom title that at first glance seems to be your typical JRPG, with the player taking control of Falco, the Paladin (not to be confused with the...

The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo's most important franchises and celebrates its 30th Anniversary this year. It's going to get a lot of focus, then, including plenty of fan-created content to celebrate its history and idiosyncrasies.
It's taken a little while, but Did You Know Gaming has continued its series that looks at a...

Given that we've covered pretty much every retro console of note in our Hardware Classics series, it was almost inevitable that we'd be forced to investigate systems which could hardly be considered noteworthy from a commercial or critical standpoint. That's certainly the case with Bit Corp Gamate, a handheld console...

Rare is a studio that's known for putting out multiple classics on Nintendo's older hardware. Though the studio is arguably best known for its Nintendo 64 games and its work on the Donkey Kong series, it also put out Battletoads way back on the NES. Known for being a great example of 'Nintendo Hard' gameplay – especially with...

Back in the early '90s when Michael Jackson was arguably the most famous person on the face of the planet, he started working with Nintendo's rival Sega on a series of video game projects. Sega was quick to exploit Jackson's natural love of video games with Moonwalker being perhaps the most...

If you've ever seen our Instagram account you'll know we love a bit of gaming art here at Nintendo Life. The majority of the art we come across is digital, however we recently came across the work of an American artist who does things a little differently.
Artist Randy Gallegos has been...

Some of you may remember Jet Force Gemini, a Nintendo 64 classic from the golden days of Rare. Though Banjo-Kazooie and Goldeneye 007 may be games that are mentioned more, Jet Force Gemini was nonetheless a lovely third person shooter that positively oozed of Rare's charm and quality. It was also a one-off game, though...

The recent Awesome Games Done Quick marathon served as a fantastic example of speedrunners demonstrating their practiced skill with impressive results. In the wake of its conclusion earlier this month, we've got just the video for anyone still needing their fix of game-breaking talent on display.
While...

In the latest entry in this series we have Nintendo Life newcomer Steven Smith (@N64Memories) talking about GoldenEye 007; no, not that one on Wii, but the N64 original.
GoldenEye 007 was my first true experience of a first-person shooter (FPS). Yes, I had played Doom – a classic, o

Long-time fans of Nintendo have often harped on about the GameCube controller being one of the best controllers in gaming history, and the console it attached to first was certainly not shy of some spectacular releases. It's a shame that we have to have a television the size of Snowdonia just to be able to appreciate the system...

It's easy to see the thinking behind the Game Gear, the machine Sega positioned as a Game Boy-beater in the early '90s. The firm's Mega Drive / Genesis platform was doing a fine job of stealing away market share from the aging NES, and Sega no doubt assumed it could do the same in the portable arena with hardware that was more...

Prolific hacker DarkShock strikes again, increasing his already impressive list of similar enhancement hacks in the past, this time adding MSU-1 high quality PCM audio support for Konami's stellar SNES title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time.
In place of the already quite impressive SPC music,...

We've been raving about the GCVideo HDMI mod for the GameCube for a little bit now, but what we haven't yet done it compare the quality to that of your average AV to HDMI converter; a common option for those trying to get older systems and games onto modern screens.
These cheap devices present all sorts of issues with...

Video game site Hardcore Gaming 101 has become something of a goldmine for retro gamers, with its staff tirelessly uncovering gems from the past that everyone else has all but forgotten about. The site also produces a line of excellent books which feature both new and re-written content, and the latest offering...

While many work on emulators to boost resolutions of retro systems, genuine hardware mods are arguably the truest way to enjoy older games with a crisper, clearer picture. With that in mind we're always interested in mods that can apply a digital HDMI output to retro consoles and, as a result, improve...

Despite their ingenious nature and futuristic feel, light guns have been part of the video game landscape since the industry began - in fact, crude examples of the tech can be found as far back as the 1930s. In the 8-bit era both Nintendo and Sega produced their own pistol-like light guns in the form of the NES Zapper and Master...

We all like talking about games, otherwise we wouldn't be here, but not everyone actively pays attention to and discusses video game music. We're often aware of it when it's so fantastic that it's impossible to ignore, but it can often be overlooked just how important audio is to any gaming...

Buying vintage games on eBay is a tricky business these days, as collectors have pushed the value of many sought-after titles to eye-watering levels. You'll find a robust market for factory-sealed releases too, some of which can sell for many times more than their original retail price...

It's not every day that you see a new game release for an old console, but it does happen from time to time. Though these releases will typically launch on a modern digital storefront simultaneously with the physical cartridge, it's still a great way to make a new game as retro as it can possibly get. The next new NES...

UK studio Rare has always had a habit of being ahead of the curve. The company - founded by Tim and Chris Stamper in the '80s - was one of the first western developers to work on the NES hardware, and in the '90s the firm would pioneer the use of CGI graphics in 2D games with the likes of Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct...

Earlier this week we shared the final fundraising total from 2016's Awesome Games Done Quick event, with it reaching a hugely impressive $1.2 million. In that post we mentioned that the "Save or Kill the Animals" Super Metroid vote had raised $311,603.16 all on its own, so we thought it'd be worth...

The Virtual Boy is well known among keen Nintendo followers - it was a quirky device that flopped commercially and, for quite some time, was effectively ignored by Nintendo. It was also a major early dalliance with 3D technology from the company, though the name and form factor makes some consider it to be a virtual...

Awesome Games Done Quick is about to wrap up for another year, hoping to gain momentum in its final hours to take its fundraising total past one million dollars. If past years are anything to go by the odds are decent, especially with the iconic final playthrough of Super Metroid being one of the event's most...

Conceptual and performance artists find meaning - or try to - in the unlikeliest of places, often taking mundane or obsessive aspects of life and applying an artistic different vision. One artist doing this is Rutherford Chang, who's based in New York and has previous works that...

Nintendo Life: Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Heidi stopXwhispering: My name is Heidi, I was born in 1984 and I'm from Sweden. I grew up in Sweden, but lived abroad during my college years - in the UK, Germany and Japan. Now I'm back in Sweden.
When did you get into gaming?
I always...

Kickstarter project aims to give you a reason to dust off those cartridges

There's nothing quite like the sensation of looking at a fully stocked wall or shelf of games and remembering the experiences had with each one. However, most gamers that have been playing games for several years will likely have amassed quite a pile over time, but who...

Nintendo is finally launching the first-gen Pokémon games on the 3DS Virtual Console, and this event has gotten the peeps over at Red Bull thinking about all of the classic myths which grew up around the games back in the late '90s - before the internet came along and made it easy to debunk such nonsense.
No, you...

The shoot 'em up genre is one that's seemingly been around for nearly as long as video games have. While they do certainly have a limited appeal, these types of games offer up what could certainly be argued as the purest arcade experiences, with lightning fast reflexes and pattern recognition being absolute musts.
Treasure is...

We're big fans of Awesome Games Done Quick, which features runs of great games and raises a lot of money for charity. In this block we can check out Metroid Fusion, Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda across a four hour block. Enjoy#AGDQ2016

Back in late 1996, with the Nintendo 64 fresh on Japanese store shelves and Super Mario 64 thrilling gamers, Nintendo pushed out a unique title on the aging Super Famicom called Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima, which translates as Marvelous: Another Treasure Island.
Notable for being the design debut...

As one of the standout games in its genre, Super Metroid has been played and beaten countless times by fans throughout the years. It's a particular favorite due to how it's very friendly to speedrunners and sequence breakers, who discover new ways to get around obstacles and barriers that should technically be...

During the Holidays we pointed your attention to Awesome Games Done Quick 2016, which will be live all week to raise huge sums of money for charity. It achieves admirable results every year, in addition to showing off impressive speedruns and gameplay from skilful and passionate gamers; naturally,...